20 Fun Facts About Apples You Didn’t Know (Hint: They’re Related to Roses!)
By Jill Brooke
In honor of National Apple Day, here are 20 fun facts about apples worth knowing. My favorite is that apples are part of the rose family. But there are so many more.
1) Apple trees take 4-5 years to produce their first fruit. A standard size apple tree starts bearing fruit 8-10 years after it is planted. A dwarf tree starts bearing fruit in 3-5 years.
2) Apples will ripen six to ten times faster at room temperature than if they were refrigerated.
3) It takes about 36 apples to create one gallon of apple cider.
4) There are more than 2,500 varieties of apples grown in the United States, and they come in all shades of red, green and yellow.
5) Steve Jobs came up with the name of “Apple” after visiting an apple orchard. He also was inspired by the Beatles.
6) Apples are a wonderful to use in decor. They match beautifully with roses and zinnias.
7) Bobbing for apples? 25% of an apples volume is air, which is why they float.
8) Pilgrims planted the first U.S. apple trees in the Massachusetts Bay Colony.
9) It takes the energy of 50 leaves to produce one apple.
10) No President George Washington didn’t tell a lie with an apple tree. While that is not true, one of his hobbies was pruning his apple trees.
11) Most apple picking is still done by hand.
12)Johnny Appleseed (real name John Chapman) was yes, a real person, and yes, he planted apple trees all over parts of the United States, and he wasn’t poor. Back then, land could be claimed if you created a permanent homestead, and one of the ways to do that was to plant 50 trees to start an orchard. Chapman planted trees, and then later would sell “his” land to people.
13)Thanks to their high levels of boron, apples can help improve your memory, mental alertness, and electrical activity of the brain.
14) The average person eats 65 apples a year.
15) Apples are the most popular ingredient for pies in the United States. They are the second most popular fruit after bananas.
16) Most of the antioxidants found in apples, including quercetin, are located in the skin.
17) The most popular varieties of apples in the US are the Red Delicious, Golden Delicious, and the Granny Smith.
18) A nifty trick to prevent fresh apple juice from turning brown is to add a few squeezes of lemon juice or lime juice. This helps prevent oxidation.
19) The average apple has 10 seeds.
20) ) Apple trees can live to be about 100 years old.
Turns out the world loves apples too. Not only does it date to biblical times – the forbidden apple – but also the apple of someone’s eye. The top apple producers around the world are China, United States, Turkey, Poland, and Italy. Apples account for 50 percent of international deciduous fruit tree production.
Also they are easy to grow and easy to buy. So to celebrate life and this day – go to an orchard, bake a pie, or consider growing a tree.
